IRA member allowed to visit Lithuania to see in-laws before he's sentenced

Friday 2 May 2014

A Limerick man convicted of IRA membership is being allowed to visit his in-laws in Lithuania before he's sentenced.

31 year-old Thomas McMahon of Ros Fearna, Murroe is out on bail after pleading guilty to being a member of an illegal organisation styling itself the IRA on the 7th of February 2013.

Live95fm's Denis Tierney reports:

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Thomas McMahon applied to the Special Criminal Court to alter his bail conditions including getting his passport returned to allow him travel to Lithuania to visit his wife's family.

He said he wanted to go 'just to say good luck' as he wouldn't be seeing them for a while.

He along with 34 year-old Noel Noonan with an address at St Patrick's Hostel, Clare Street, Limerick, will be sentenced on the 27th of June after pleading guilty last month to being members of the IRA.

They were arrested after a number of suspected rocket launchers were seized in County Tipperary in February of last year.

Detective Inspector John Dollard said gardai were objecting to the application as they wouldn't be able to supervise the bail conditions if McMahon was out of the State and they considered him a flight risk, as he was now a convicted man.

Defence Counsel Michael Bowman argued that his client had been allowed alter his conditions twice before, so he could travel to Lithuania and he had acted honourably by returning to Ireland on both occasions.

Presiding Judge Ms Justice Iseult O'Malley granted the application and ordered Thomas McMahon to surrender his passport again on the 16th of May, the day he returns from his family holiday.